


Playing Our Song

by pulpriter



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Experimental Style, F/M, Near Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4037509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulpriter/pseuds/pulpriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A song evokes memories at Dot and Hugh's wedding reception</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Our Song

**Author's Note:**

> Experimental fiction! Kind of an odd conceit on my part.  
> Please review and tell me if it worked.  
> I do not own these characters, I just love them.  
> No Season 3 spoilers.

Phryne was in her element. Dot and Hugh had been married in a very conventional ceremony a few hours earlier, but Phryne had arranged the reception. She had pulled out all the stops for these two dear people. The food was of the finest quality, the hall was stunning even before they had put up any decorations, the flowers were the freshest and at the peak of their beauty. There was a highly regarded band for the dancing.  
Dot and Hugh had danced their first dance; a traditional waltz, of course. And now the time had come for the rest of the guests to join in the dancing. Phryne had been busy with a few last minute details, but now she went to find Jack, to tell him about the next dance.  
“I just had a signal from the band. They’re going to debut a new song here, at this party!” Phryne was thrilled with the whole idea. “It’s actually featured in a movie that hasn’t been released yet. But I talked them into performing it here, for Dot and Hugh. All I know about it is that it’s a love song.”  
“Well, Miss Fisher, do you have any blank spaces on your dance card?”  
Phryne examined her empty hand as if, indeed, it held a dance card. “Actually, I believe I see your name here.”  
Jack smiled, offered his arm, and they strode out onto the dance floor, which was filling up quickly.  
The music began, and Jack listened to the first bar. “A foxtrot, I think.” Phryne took his hand and laid the other gently on his shoulder, and they began to move together. 

_I’ve got a feeling, it’s a feeling I’m concealing, I don’t know why.  
It’s just a mental, incidental, sentimental alibi._

“Did she say ‘alibi’? I didn’t think that was normally part of a romance,” Jack laughed.  
Phryne reflected that once, she would have said that, too. But then, why waste time on any normal romance?

_But I adore you, so strong for you…  
Why go on stalling, love is calling, and I am falling—why be shy?_

Phryne gazed around the room until her eyes fell on Dot and Hugh. They looked so happy. They had almost not gotten started, Phryne remembered. Hugh would have let their religious differences stall them, if Dot hadn’t turned the tables and invited him to a dance. And Dot wouldn’t have done that if Phryne hadn’t encouraged her. 

Funny how coincidental life was. It was all just a house of cards. If Phryne hadn’t come back to Melbourne when she did, she wouldn’t have been invited to the Andrews’ house, and she would never have met Dot; if Mac hadn’t treated Alice, Phryne would never have met Bert and Cec; and if John Andrews hadn’t died suspiciously, the police would never have investigated the death, and Phryne would never have met Jack Robinson….  
And Hugh. Of course, Hugh. That’s right, she’d been thinking of Dot and Hugh.

_Let’s fall in love, why shouldn’t we fall in love?  
Our hearts are made of it, let’s take a chance, why be afraid of it?_

Phryne usually kept her memories of Rene DuBois under lock and key; but she knew well why it made sense to be afraid of love. She didn’t want to think of that tonight, however, and she shook off any thoughts of her first experience of love, twisted as it had become in the end. She thought she had kept that all inside her head, until she saw Jack watching her face with that penetrating look. It was harder and harder to put anything past him.  
Phryne smiled and tossed her head and moved a little closer to Jack, and he let her get away with it. She had a feeling he was not fooled; but Phryne didn’t want unhappy thoughts to interrupt this evening. This was Hugh and Dottie’s night, and they had no reason to be afraid of love. No reason at all.

_Let’s close our eyes, and make our own paradise._

Phryne looked again at Dot and Hugh. Dottie was beaming, and so was Hugh. “They’re making their own paradise, I’d say.”  
“Or will be soon.”  
Phryne was amused but surprised by his remark. “Why, Inspector! How shocking!”  
Jack only grinned. “I was a newlywed once.”  
She tried to conjure up an image of Jack as an ardent bridegroom of about 20 years old. It was hard to imagine Jack being as young and innocent as Hugh, having never known him as anything less than the urbane detective she met mere hours after arriving back in Melbourne. Or, more accurately, the rather irritated detective she met that day. She remembered how he had intrigued her as he paid attention to her “wild surmise”.  
Phryne had to be glad that she and Jack had met when they did: she feared their younger selves couldn’t have found any meeting of the minds. Still, the notion of young Jack eagerly anticipating—and enjoying—his wedding night flitted through her head until she firmly banished it.

_Little we know of it, still we can try to make a go of it._

Phryne let herself get lost in moving to the music. She loved the freedom of dancing. Dances had structure, but there was infinite potential for variation. And if one was lucky enough to find a partner who could keep up, there was no end to the possibilities for inventiveness and exploration. Phryne especially enjoyed dancing with Jack, who danced as he did everything else: single-minded, formal, with quiet authority and yet with a sense of humor. He could not only keep up but joined her in making it a creation of their own. Just as that thought went through her mind, Jack signaled her to make a turn. She twirled away joyfully, and he smiled approvingly as she did. She added a little pirouette of her own, but then, never losing the beat, she stepped back into his waiting arms on cue. 

_We might have been meant for each other.  
To be or not to be, let our hearts discover—_

Jack noted the reference to Hamlet. “I can only approve of a combination of Shakespeare and jazz,” he pronounced.  
“Shakespeare and jazz!” Phryne was charmed. “That might be you and me!”  
“So it might.”

_Let’s fall in love, why shouldn’t we fall in love?_  
_Now is the time for it, while we are young:_  
_Let’s fall in love._  


“They do seem so young,” Phryne said pensively, looking at the happy couple.  
Jack said warmly, “They’ll be fine.” Without meaning to, he thought of his own failed marriage. There had been too many obstacles, and it seemed that he and Rosie weren’t meant to find their way through. But those thoughts didn’t have any place here, at this celebration of love. The newlyweds had already navigated some difficult issues and made some compromises. Jack hoped for the best for Collins and –well, not Miss Williams. Mrs. Collins. That would certainly take some getting used to. 

There was a long interlude with no singing. Dot and Hugh were all wrapped up in each other as they danced, but at last Dot took the time to look all around the ballroom. She gazed up happily at Hugh. “Everything is so beautiful,” Dottie breathed. “I don’t want to forget a single detail of this night. Miss Phryne went to so much trouble.”  
Hugh looked down at her lovingly. “She and the Inspector are enjoying it, too.” Dot looked around. She found them just as Miss Fisher was initiating another fancy turn. She spun confidently; Inspector Robinson watched indulgently, and kept the rhythm as he waited just as confidently for her to return to him.  
The Inspector appeared to be satisfied to let Miss Fisher have the limelight. Miss Fisher finished twirling and fell back into the steady rhythm with him. 

As she did, the singer began to sing a reprise. 

_We might have been meant for each other.  
To be or not to be, let our hearts discover—_

“To be or not to be, Jack?” Phryne challenged.  
“As you well know, that is the question,” he answered smoothly.

_Let’s fall in love, why shouldn’t we fall in love?_  
_Now is the time for it, while we are young:_  
_Let’s fall in love._

**Author's Note:**

> I heard this song (Let's Fall in Love) and thought of Phryne and Jack. I don’t do videos, so I decided to write this. Let me know if my experiment worked!  
> I took some liberty : the movie the song is featured in did not debut until 1933. I figured, if the movie debuted in 1933, the music would have had to have been written a few years before that, wouldn’t it?  
> You can hear the version I imagined them dancing to, featuring Ella Fitzgerald, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhdQTug7-cc. There is another version I like featuring the sublime Diana Krall at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSRsg79itN4 .


End file.
